Goudkamp on Lunney on Australian Tort Law

James Goudkamp has posted to SSRN Book Review:  A History of Australian Tort Law 1901-1945:  England’s Obedient Servant?.  The abstract provides:

Recent years have witnessed a surge of interest in the historical foundations of tort law. In 2014, Paul Mitchell published his excellent A History of Tort Law 1900–1950. Now Mark Lunney has published A History of Australian Tort Law 1901–1945: England’s Obedient Servant? Lunney’s book is ultimately concerned to test the claim, which he regards as being received wisdom, that in the period between 1901 and 1945 Australian private law, and Australian tort law in particular, essentially mirrored that in England and that there was little evidence of Australian exceptionalism. Lunney takes the following remark of GW Paton (the Dean of Melbourne Law School) made in 1952 that ‘there are very few significant differences’ between English and Australian law as embodying the conventional view.